Page 34 of Vengeance in Venice (Murder in Moonlight #6)

T he first thing that Constance saw in Foscolo’s home was a small painting of a woman.

“Is he married?” she whispered to Solomon in surprise.

“Widowed, would be my guess.”

And the painting would be the first thing he saw when he came through the door. There was pathos in that, something innately human and vulnerable and lonely. And yet they believed he had killed a man and poisoned Constance. People were complicated and messy .

Foscolo lived in a decent set of rooms. A kitchen to the right, a dining room and a bedchamber on the left, and, facing the front door, a pleasant sitting room with a rickety but tidy desk at which he presumably worked.

Leaving Solomon to search in the sitting room, Constance flitted back to the bedchamber and, listening out for any sounds of approaching footsteps, began a quick, methodical search.

But there was very little here that was personal.

Foscolo appeared to be a tidy man, but he kept no letters in his room, no keepsakes among his shirts or underwear.

She found nothing under his pillow except a nightshirt, and nothing beneath the mattress.

He had few ornaments and no jewelry. Apart from the painting in the hall, she found no traces of a wife.

A man who lived for his work? Or a man perpetually in hiding from the Austrian police, living down his past as a revolutionary?

She moved into the kitchen, which was equipped well enough but was obviously little used. Too clean, too tidy. She had just opened the first drawer when she heard voices below in the foyer, and heavy footsteps mounting the stairs.

“Solomon!” she hissed, closing the drawer and bolting back into the hall, where she sat on a stool that was obviously used for standing on to reach the wall sconces.

After a tense moment, Solomon emerged, leaving the sitting room door in precisely the same position as they had found it, and loped silently down the passage to stand by her side.

The footsteps paused an instant, as though their owner were surprised by the sight of the empty chair beside the front door.

Constance held her breath, her heart beating loudly in her ears as she dredged up the story they’d hoped never to need.

“Signor Foscolo! Forgive us, but I was taken ill and the door opened, and Solomon was so anxious to speak to you. I do hope you don’t mind…”

Thin. Damnably thin…

The footsteps moved on and continued along the passage and up the next flight of stairs.

Constance sagged.

Solomon touched her shoulder. “Anything?”

“Nothing. You?”

He shook his head. “A few family papers, a couple of bills. It’s as if the man has no life.”

“Or a life he is hiding from the Austrians.”

“Precisely.”

Then he’d taken even more of a risk killing the Austrian ally, Savelli. What had Savelli done that Foscolo should kill him at that moment? Was it part of a larger plan? Or were they right that it was all for Elena?

He stood no chance with her, Constance realized all over again, as Solomon returned to the sitting room and she went back into the kitchen. Why would she turn from one secretive man to another? She needed openness, honesty. And certainly not her husband’s killer…

Constance searched the inside of the drawers and beneath them. She looked in all the cupboards, even inside the oven and in every empty pot and jar.

She had just stood on tiptoes to replace the last jar on the shelf when a shadow fell over her.

Not Solomon . She always knew his presence.

She turned her head slowly.

Foscolo stood in the doorway, watching her.

Her instinctive cry to Solomon died in her throat.

How the devil had he got in so silently? One thing was certain—her planned story if discovered had no chance at all now. He was not going to believe that she had collapsed against the door and it had opened… Wildly, she wondered how to warn Solomon without giving his presence away to Foscolo.

The man was alarmingly still. He had been a soldier. He had probably killed many men before Savelli, and had tried to kill Constance already.

“Signor Foscolo,” she said loudly, and pushed the jar the rest of the way on to its shelf before turning fully to face him. “I was looking for tea, but of course I have no right and can only apologize for invading your home.”

“Oh, I think you must do better than that,” he said. “Explain it.”

Very aware that he stood in the way of any possible escape to the front door, she said, “I wanted to talk to you. Did the caretaker not tell you I was here?”

“No. The chair in the passage warned me of that. I prefer to come and go without Signora Berini’s surveillance.”

Beyond Foscolo’s shoulder, another shadow fell.

“You move very quietly,” Solomon said.

“So do you,” Foscolo replied without turning. “Since you came to talk, I advise you to begin.”

“Perhaps we could sit and be comfortable?” Constance suggested.

Foscolo appeared to consider. “Perhaps I prefer to keep the two of you apart.”

“I wouldn’t,” Solomon said gently.

“But then, you have really lost any say in the matter by breaking into my home.”

“Arrest me,” Solomon said at once. “Take me to Lampl.”

Foscolo turned slowly to look at him. “I’ll give you his address, if you like. Which of you picked my lock?” Receiving no answer, the Venetian gave a crooked smile. “Very well. Let us discuss all accusations.” He stood to one side and gestured exaggeratedly with one arm. “After you, signora.”

Her heart thundering, Constance sailed past him to Solomon, who grasped her hand in a firm, welcome grip. They walked together to the sitting room. Constance did not hear Foscolo following then, but she felt him with every prickling hair on her nape.

Solomon handed her onto the sofa and sat beside her without invitation. To her surprise, Foscolo’s lips twitched.

“You are a very cool and collected pair of housebreakers. Do I take it, my amateur sleuth-hounds, that you suspect me of something?”

“Actually, we are professional,” Constance said, largely to give them thinking time. “We have an inquiry business in London.”

Foscolo still looked amused. “Then I congratulate you again. Everyone else believes you, sir, are a great shipping magnate.”

“Apparently, one can be both,” Solomon said. “Why are you not investigating my wife’s poisoning?”

“I am, in my own way.”

“A way that covers your own tracks?”

“Yes,” Foscolo said, “in a way. I gather that you have recovered, signora. I am glad of that, at least.”

“I almost believe you,” Constance said.

Foscolo leaned against the arm of the comfortable old chair opposite them. “What led you to suspect me?”

They could tiptoe around this for hours. Constance opened her mouth, but Solomon said it for her.

“The murder weapon. Savelli’s dagger is not missing. Lampl, the bureaucrat, might not have noticed that, but you are a policeman.”

Foscolo inclined his head. “I did notice.”

“Is the dagger found in Savelli’s body still in the possession of the police?”

“No.”

“Then either you did give it back to Signora Savelli, or someone else has it.”

Again, Foscolo nodded. “And that someone else has to be a policeman, so here you are.”

“And then you were at the consulate reception, standing close to my wife’s glass when neither of us could see it.”

“That is the one time it is unlikely to have been tampered with,” Foscolo said unexpectedly. “Lampl and I watch each other like hawks.”

A first twinge of doubt caused Constance’s eyebrow to twitch. Foscolo did not sound like a guilty man.

“Then who took the dagger from police custody?” she demanded.

Foscolo smiled faintly.

Solomon threw himself against the back of the sofa. “Lampl. Lampl, who was Savelli’s friend and must have seen his collection, who had plenty of time to fall in love with Elena, who could make himself the hero of the investigation into the murder, while executing whomever he chose.”

“Savelli’s prominence and the politics of the day gave him every excuse to personally oversee the case,” Foscolo said, “and he does, largely by keeping me busy on futilities. But he suspects I already know too much. I am expecting the dagger to be planted among my possessions very soon, and then he will be home and free—though whether he wins Elena Savelli is another matter.”

“She is a woman who inspires obsession,” Constance said. “Not yours?”

A rueful smile tugged at the policeman’s lips. “I am not dead. I notice her, as I notice you. And I pity her. I don’t pity you, now that you are well. But Lampl is dangerous, and he has spies everywhere. You have to keep out of this.”

“We can’t,” Solomon said briefly. “How did he get his hands on the twin dagger?”

“I’m not sure. I think he found it, pillaged it, during the war, from what I have learned from the Austrian garrison—which is vague, by the way, and even if it amounted to evidence, which it doesn’t, the government would not allow it to be used.

I cannot prove he ever had it. No one ever saw him with it.

When he visited Savelli and saw he had a dagger exactly the same, he must have seen his chance and made his plan. ”

“That is a cold-blooded murder if was for love.”

“Love. And the conditions of power and submission that exist here. He felt entitled to do what he wanted.”

“Even though Savelli was his friend?”

“He was still a Venetian. A lower rank of friend.”

“Surely all Austrians don’t think like that,” Constance said, appalled.

Foscolo rubbed his forehead wearily. “Of course not. Nor do they go around murdering the natives. Lampl is…flawed.”

“And no one knows all this but you,” Solomon said.

He didn’t quite trust Foscolo, and neither did Constance.

They had been so sure they were right about him.

Foscolo was surely the man with the opportunity, because he did the actual work of investigating and collating evidence.

“I hesitate to ask how you worked it out.”